September 2020 — pg. 31
The Free Methodist denomination is not unique in
holding our highest allegiance to Jesus. We are, however,
among a few denominations that explicitly forbid members
and ministers from participation in secret societies.
As the Book of Discipline’s ¶ 3132 states, “The Christian’s
supreme loyalty is to Jesus Christ who is Lord (Romans
14:9; Acts 2:36). In every association, Christians must keep
themselves free to follow Christ and obey the will of God
(2 Corinthians 6:14–18). Therefore, as members of the Free
Methodist Church we abstain from membership in secret
societies.”
The Discipline goes on to outline how many secret
societies use religious terms, practices and songs that
imitate church services and that the god they promote is
unitarian or deistic in nature. They worship a god who is
not the orthodox trinitarian God of Christianity.
What led us to be so explicit in our stance against secret
societies? And is this stance still relevant today? The first
question is rooted in our history, and we will look back to
Free Methodist beginnings. The second question will bring
us into our current context where we can use our past to ask
questions of the relevance today.
Free Methodist beginnings were entangled with secret
societies, and the early stance against secret societies and
lodges was rooted in Free Methodists’ Christocentric and
egalitarian beliefs. Fraternal orders and secret societies such
as the Masons, Odd Fellows and others were built around a
vague, universalistic religion that emphasized hierarchies of
people and power. In the 1840s and 1850s, these groups were
growing in popularity and political strength in the general
public and within the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was
believed that nearly 20% of Methodist Episcopal clergy were
associated with a fraternal order around this time.
B.T. Roberts believed that universalist beliefs had
infiltrated the Methodist Episcopal clergy, and these beliefs
were in part responsible both for the abandonment of
Methodistic fervor and the strong reaction against Roberts
and other holiness preachers and lay people. The backdoor
dealings among Methodist Episcopal clergy to remove
Roberts from the denomination also played a role in his and
Free Methodism’s long-standing stance against secrecy.
After the Civil War, while slavery had been abolished
in name, the work to fully integrate people who had been
enslaved into society was the next task for Christian
abolitionists like many early Free Methodists. Many of
those who were abolitionists before the Civil War were
also egalitarians, which meant that they believed in the full
equality of all people regardless of race or gender. For these
people, secret societies such as Masons, Odd Fellows and
the Ku Klux Klan stood in the way of an egalitarian society
because they removed white men from the life of the church,
used the society meetings to make decisions about local
political life, and centered male social life in the lodge —
not the home.
Early Free Methodist ministers C.H. Underwood and
N.D. Fanning, frustrated at their camp meetings being
disturbed by secret lodges, asked Wheaton College President
Jonathan Blanchard to take up the anti-secret society cause.
The group that formed, the National Christian Association,
began publishing a newspaper, The Christian Cynosure,
to publicize the cause. Later a short-lived political party,
the American Party, grew out of the National Christian
Association with a platform that included (but was not
limited to) full equality for African Americans, women and
Native Americans. The goal of an egalitarian, Jesus-centered
society motivated their work against the power that secrecy
gave lodges, secret societies and later the KKK within local
communities to keep African Americans and women out of
decision-making.
Secret societies such as the Masons, Odd Fellows, KKK
and others have experienced rising and falling levels of
interest over the years, but the Free Methodist stance
against secret societies has remained. The larger point is, of
course, important. No group, allegiance or person is to be
more important than Christ in our lives. There is no higher
allegiance. And it is equally important that we recognize the
false idol that groups can play in our lives.
It is this point that bears upon our current American
context. In the United States, an online conspiracy has
morphed into a secret society with many of the same quasi-religious
overtones that Masonry and similar groups have.
Some people are even reciting an oath or otherwise pledging
allegiance to this conspiracy for “membership.” This group,
QAnon, follows many of the same strategies of earlier secret
societies. But as Free Methodists we can have no higher
pledge than to be a follower of Jesus.+
“What led us to be
so explicit in our
stance against
secret societies? And
is this stance still
relevant today?”
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